halcyon
by gallifreyedjeans
Summary: Post-Angels Take Manhattan. The Doctor decides to visit Amy one last time.
1. part i

_Okay! Officially my FIRST Doctor Who story. I always found it impossible to write about this show because there's just soooo many details to keep in mind, but, being a huge fan of Amy, I found myself getting all these ideas about her storyline that I just HAD to try to write. This is technically not an AU, it just takes place during a time period that isn't explored on the show. I won't be changing any events that occurred in the actual story._

_Basically all you need to know is this: the story is set during The Eleventh Hour, a few hours after the Doctor has taken off in the TARDIS and left Amy alone for the second time._

_I'm anticipating this will be written in three parts, so stay tuned._

* * *

"Are you _sure _you're okay, though?"

Amy lets out a sigh of frustration, too exasperated to even turn around. "I said I was fine, Rory."

He doesn't dare open his mouth again, but Amy can tell he's still there. She busies herself with her phone charger, plugging it in next to her bed, and finally she hears the floorboards creak as he retreats.

"I'll call you in the morning, then?"

"If you want. I don't care."

"Amy."

"_What_?" She whirls around, hair whipping across her face. Rory is standing in the doorway now, holding onto the frame like he's ready to take off at a sprint. His face is calm as ever, but she detects an undercurrent of annoyance. Like he has the right to be annoyed with anyone.

"What did you think was gonna happen, anyway? Did you think he was gonna take you with him or something?"

"Rory, _shut up, _that's not-"

"Did you think he was gonna save you from having to stay here with me? Cause that's what you really want, isn't it?" His voice breaks a little, but he keeps going. "You're just waiting on something better. You always have been. And everybody knows it."

Amy opens and closes her mouth a couple times, but for once in her life, words fail her. There's no use in denying anything he's saying. It's the icy, biting, horrible truth.

"Maybe _you _should just call _me _when you've figured out what you want."

And then he's gone, footsteps echoing down the staircase, fading away until she's alone in that big, empty house again. She sinks down onto the mattress, resting her head on her hands.

When she was seven years old, the Doctor had promised her things beyond her comprehension. "When you're a little older," he'd said, "we're going to travel together. We'll go to places you've never seen, places you never even knew existed, and do things you've never dreamed of." She'd stared at him, wide-eyed. He had promised her entire cities on floating starships, the windblown fields of Provence, battles atop a pirate ship floating on stormy seas. She had always known that she would have to wait, but when he'd shown up in her house this morning she was sure that the waiting was finally over. Instead, she'd stood in the yard and watched that stupid time machine take off again. Without her.

If it even _was _a time machine. Amy stood up, absentmindedly grabbing a towel from where it was draped over the bedpost and heading down the hallway toward the bathroom. After everything she'd seen today, it was hard to deny that aliens and time travel and all those things were real, but still. What kind of time machine was shaped like a little blue box? Shouldn't it be something cooler? All the psychiatrists she'd seen, her science teachers over the years, Aunt Sharon… they'd told her hundreds of times that time travel wasn't real. She'd finally dropped it when she was about twelve, sick of being teased by the other kids in her class. That was when she started going by Amy instead of Amelia. She had finally informed her relieved aunt that fairy tales were for little kids. She'd even given up on her dream of marrying the Doctor when she was older, and dated Jeff and a couple other guys before ending up with Rory when she was eighteen. She knew everyone in Leadworth assumed they would get married one day. It wasn't like she didn't care about Rory – they'd grown up together, how could she not? But _married_? Now? She's only nineteen. A part of her still believes in the Raggedy Doctor, the man who'd sat with her in the garden one morning when she was seven years old and promised her the world.

Amy turns the hot water tap as far as it goes and steps into the shower. Maybe she just needs to rest. She could be dreaming, the whole Prisoner Zero thing just a figment of her imagination. It wouldn't be the first time her subconscious had invented some ridiculous scenario about the Doctor. _I'll go to sleep right after I get out of the shower_, she tells herself, letting the hot water splash over her face and run down her back.

And then she hears the crash.

She freezes, scared to move, listening hard. The only sound is the water hitting the floor. _It's probably Rory come back to drive me crazy again, _she reasons, but she turns the water off anyway and steps carefully out to wrap herself in the towel. The house is silent now except for the usual creaks and groans it makes while it's settling in, tree branches scraping across the windowpanes in the kitchen. Amy gently eases the bathroom door open, wincing when it squeaks. She's just about to shrug it off and march back to her bedroom when she hears three heavy footsteps coming from downstairs – gasping softly, she draws back behind the door. Okay, that's definitely not Rory. He walks quietly – like a ballerina, she's teased him since they were kids. Her heart is thrumming in her chest as she grabs her clothes and hastily gets dressed. If there _is _a burglar or a murderer or something in the house, she's not chasing him around in a stupid towel. Amy Pond fights back in style.

Tossing her damp hair over one shoulder, she tiptoes down the staircase. It's dark downstairs. Rory, conscientious as always, must've gone around switching off all the lights. He always locked the door behind him, too – he worried about leaving her alone. Like she wasn't perfectly capable of fending for herself.

Someone's definitely in the kitchen. They're not making any noise, but she can sense some kind of energy, some kind of presence. She has a sudden flashing memory of Prisoner Zero, that horrible lizard-like alien thing staring her down in the spare room upstairs. Could it be back? Just what she needed to top off this _fabulous_ day – another alien attack. And this time, she'd have to face it alone. Completely alone.

She grabs a black umbrella from the stand in the hallway – the closest approximation to a weapon that's readily available – and ducks into the kitchen.

"H-hello?" she calls out, and her voice shakes. So much for fighting back in style.

The answer comes immediately.

"Hello."

Amy yelps, dropping the umbrella and stumbling backward. It's a man's voice.

"Rory?" she asks, even though she knows it can't be him. The figure in the shadows is too tall and he's wearing a long peacoat, nothing like the jeans and flannel shirt Rory had on earlier. He takes a step closer, moonlight falling across his features, and the bottom drops out of her stomach.

"Doctor."

She has to hold on to the back of a kitchen chair to keep herself upright. He's really _back_?

"I didn't think you were ever coming for me." She shifts awkwardly, raking her fingers through her wet hair.

"How long has it been?"

She blinks. "What?"  
"Since you saw me last." His voice is oddly strained. "How long?"

"Oh, uh…" she glances over her shoulder at the clock. "Six hours? Seven? Somethin' like that. You really know how to keep a girl waiting."

He sighs, but it's a weird sound, almost like a sob and a groan of frustration at the same time. And then he's crossing the kitchen floor in a couple wide strides, engulfing her in a hug so tight she feels like her ribcage might crack. His face presses into her hair, breathing her in, and she feels the words before she hears them: "my Amelia."

"Doctor?" She tries to pull back but he's too strong. His arms criss-cross her back, holding her so close that when she blinks, her eyelashes brush against the shoulder of his coat. "Is… something wrong?"

"No, Amelia." His voice is a soft breath into her hair, like an exhale, barely even audible. Amy manages to wriggle out of his grasp and steps back, bumping into the kitchen table. Her eyes are wide.

"Sorry. I-I'm sorry." The Doctor slowly brings his arms back to his sides like he's not sure what to do with them when they're not wrapped around her. "I forgot. It's different for you now, isn't it? What with you being… well, however… I'm not entirely sure that I…"

"Can you talk in complete sentences, please?"  
"Yes, yes, right. Amy. Amy." He steps a few inches closer, eyes searching her face. "How old are you?"

"That's a bit personal."

"No it's not," he says brightly. "Not with you and me. See, I'll tell you… I'm thirteen hundred and seven. That's not so bad. And you, you're…"

"Nineteen."

He laughs, a proper laugh, throwing his head back and everything. "Nineteen years old. Twelve years since fish fingers and custard."

Amy cocks her head to the side. It was just a few hours since she'd seen him last, but judging by his face it's been millennia. His eyes are tired and sad, his cheekbones more prominent. And the way he's looking at her… it's like he's trying to remember a long-lost friend.

_I don't even know you_, she wants to yell. _You left me behind. You never gave me the _chance _to know you._

"Why did you even come back?" She folds her arms across her chest, taking in his clothes. He's changed them since earlier that day at the hospital, traded them in for a crisp button-down shirt, a black bowtie, no suspenders. That stupid black peacoat.

He blinks. "Thought you'd be pleased to see me. You wanted to come when you were a little girl."

Amy opens her mouth, but the Doctor cuts her off.

"I know, I know. You _grew up_." He says it like a swear word. "I'm just asking for one day, Amelia."

"I don't want any of it." She glares at him.

"C'mon, yeah you do…"

"_No,_" she says forcefully, and he shuts up. "If this is what it's gonna be like, with you leaving me all the time… I don't want it. It's not fair."

He falls silent, a shadow of something horrible passing across his face.

"Tell you what." Amy leans in, closing the gap between them, slightly damp hair falling around her shoulders. "I'll come with you if you can _promise _you will never leave me behind again."

The wind gently rattles the windowpanes, the faucet drips. The clock on the wall ticks.

"That's what I thought."


	2. part ii

_Part twoooo! More to come. It's 4 AM so I can't think of any other relevant information to add here, haha._

* * *

Amy doesn't expect to find the Doctor still sitting in her kitchen the next morning.

Yellow light illuminates the room, little dust particles dancing by the window. His chin is resting on his hands and he's staring at the kitchen door like he's been waiting in the same position all night long.

"Seriously?" Amy asks, heart thudding in her chest. She smoothes out the wrinkles in her white cotton nightgown.

"Good morning Amelia."

His smile is so guarded, so different from the carefree idiot who ran around her front yard in a raggedy dress shirt and tie yesterday. What could have possibly happened to change him so quickly?

"Are… you okay?" She walks to the refrigerator, rummaging through bottles so she won't have to look at him.

"Do you remember what I told you when you were a little girl?"

"You told me a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"You told me…" Amy sighs, breathing in the cold air. "You told me you had a time machine. And you said you'd come back for me. That I could leave with you."

"So believe me. Amelia, believe me for five minutes, can you do that for me?"

The pleading note in his voice takes her by surprise and she turns around, a carton of milk in one hand and an expression of confusion on her face. Then she rolls her eyes.

"Tell you what. I'll eat breakfast, get dressed, and then you can show me this _time machine _of yours, alright?"

He chuckles, sliding back in the chair and roughly running a hand through his dark hair. "Take your time."

They sit across from each other at the table while she eats her cereal, a mirror image of their former selves. Amy remembers herself at seven, eating custard out of a bowl with a giant spoon and laughing. She shakes her head to clear it. How many times after that night did she eat her dinner at that table alone, staring at the empty chair across from her? She lost track long ago. Sometimes she'd even pretended he was with her, carrying on conversations with an imaginary friend. Questions about being left behind, being all alone, answered only by the creaks of an empty house.

"Alright," she says finally. They haven't talked for ten minutes. "Let's go."

* * *

Amy sits on the TARDIS staircase and watches him twirling around the console, pressing buttons and flicking levers. The yellow and green and orange neon of the time machine's interior blinds her. She stares up at the sloping ceiling and wonders if anything will surprise her ever again.

It's funny. She really ought to have been shocked, floored, flabbergasted. But after all the years she spent dreaming about what the inside of that blue box could possibly look like, reality is actually normal compared to what she'd envisioned.

"You're not saying much!" The Doctor calls over the horrible whirring, screeching noises. The floor rocks beneath them but he hardly seems to notice as he spins wildly. His face shines with a renewed happiness.

"Well, I don't know where we're going, do I?" She stands up hesitantly, grasping the handrail. "For all I know, this is just a giant room that makes a racket. Who's to say it actually _travels in time_?"

"I can fix that." He grabs a weird zigzag instrument on the console and twists it violently. "D'you ever remember a day in your life and just wish you could go back to it and do something differently? Even if it's just a tiny, miniscule, seemingly insignificant thing?"

"Um…" Amy twirls a lock of hair around one finger absently. "I guess."

"Give me the date."

She thinks for a moment, flipping through the obvious memory of the night the Doctor first left her behind. There was nothing that could be salvaged there. An image pops into her head: the cracked ceiling of her bedroom, moonlight filtering in through her lace curtains. She'd been young… she remembers fitting perfectly in her bed, feet not even reaching the end of the mattress. Outside the window, a faint chorus of voices carried on the wind. Christmas carols.

"December 1997. Christmas Eve. I guess," she adds, trying not to sound so eager.

He flips a couple of switches. "Time?"

"Whenever. Sometime at night."

The TARDIS almost flips over and Amy grabs for the handrail again, holding on tight as the Doctor lets out a whoop of delight.

"Time vortex is always a bit more bumpy when we're travelling along one timestream!" he shouts over the noise. Amy nods like she really knows what the hell he's talking about. "Should be over in a…"

Sudden silence. The machine lurches to a stop and Amy almost flies off the staircase.

"Whoo!" The Doctor wipes a hand across his forehead. "Rough landing. Anyway. Take a look outside, Amy."

She walks over to the door, glancing over her shoulder with slight trepidation as she goes. "You're sure I'm not gonna… get sucked into that time vortex thingy or something?"

"Nah. Nah, that almost never happens. Go on, go on!"

He's behind her suddenly, practically bursting with excitement. One hand firmly grasps her shoulder. Reassured, she pushes the door and it swings open to a deep black, cold night.

"Leadworth." Amy notes the faint displeasure in the Doctor's voice. "Beautiful, glorious Leadworth. I can see why you wanted to come back here, Amelia. It's… picturesque."

"Shut up, alright?" She steps out, kneeling down to skim her fingers through the snow. "I didn't decide to live here."

"Right, so Christmas Eve when you were eight." The Doctor's boots crunch through the snow as he steps out of the TARDIS after her, taking in their surroundings. "What's so special about this night? Except for, you know, the fact that it's almost Christmas."

Amy stares at the trees lining her street – it's _definitely_ her street, the one she's lived on all her life, but those trees were cut down shortly after her thirteenth birthday. She'd climbed them with Rory when they were kids, constantly daring him to go higher and higher even though she knew he'd never comply. She was always the one yelling down orders and mocking him from her perch high above. After the trees were gone, she'd felt a twinge of nostalgia for those days, even though she knew she wouldn't be a tree-climbing tomboy her entire life. Things didn't change often in Leadworth, but when they did, it was jarring.

"It's definitely 1997, then?" Amy walks closer to her favorite tree, the one with the widest trunk and low branches that starts right at her eye level. Her eye level when she was eight, that is. Now she's looking down on it, crouching to brush a hand across the bark. "This is unreal."

"And yet, somehow, real." The Doctor brushes his hands together and she senses he's growing somewhat impatient. "Amy. Christmas Eve, 1997. Why."

"I was alone," she says softly. She lets her knees fall to the white ground, barely noticing the snow soaking through her jeans. "Aunt Sharon was at a party with some friends and I was supposed to go to sleep. She always said it like that… 'just go to sleep,' like it was really easy."

The Doctor nods sympathetically, sitting next to her in the snow.

"I was always lying awake thinking. I tried really hard not to feel so lonely, but I didn't have many friends except for Rory and Mels. Melody," she explains, noting a sudden emotion pass over the Doctor's face, which she takes for confusion. "This girl in our class. She was kinda like me… she was adopted, didn't really feel like she fit in. So we stuck together. But I always felt like no matter how many friends you have… nothing's permanent, y'know?"

"I know." He's watching her with an unreadable expression.

Amy looks down at her hands, playing with the silver bracelet around her wrist. "I dunno, we can't really go and talk to myself, can we? Cheer myself up a bit?"

"We could," the Doctor says carefully. "But Amy, what do you remember about this night? Really remember? It wasn't just another night you were lonely, was it?"

She frowns. "I dunno why it's so special, really. I just…"

The Doctor gets to his feet, coat billowing in the wind, and reaches out a hand to pull her up. "Think, Amy. Walk with me and try to remember as much as you can."

They emerge from the cluster of trees onto the road, bumpy and cracked pavement winding off into the distance. Several houses here and there sparkle with lights and candles flicker in the windows.

"I couldn't sleep, so I… came downstairs. I was gonna get a drink of water. It was so dark I could hardly see, but there was… there was something there. In the shadows."

"What was it?"

The house emerges out of the darkness, looming up ahead like a ship in the night. A single light flickers in one of the upstairs windows and Amy's breath catches. _She's up there_. Her own self… another part of herself that she'd said goodbye to long ago.

"It was…" And Amy sees it now, rising up out of the shadows and framed by the windowpanes in the sitting room. Evergreen branches brushing up against the glass. "A Christmas tree. We always got one. Aunt Sharon and me. But we never…"

She trails off, turning to look at the Doctor, who's grinning stupidly at her in the moonlight.

"You never decorated it?" he suggests.

"No…" Amy stares at the window, a faraway expression settling across her face. "We used to. Before I lost my parents. My mum, she kept everything in these big wooden crates in the basement, and every December we'd drag them up and take out all the tinsel and ornaments and stuff."

"But not anymore?"

"Aunt Sharon always said she was too busy. Sometimes we'd decorate it Christmas morning, but… it wasn't really right, I guess. That's not what you're supposed to do."

The Doctor whips a little metal-like wand out of his coat pocket, and Amy blinks curiously. What had he called that thing? A sonic screwdriver. But it used to look different. She remembers plucking it off the table in that spare room upstairs, handing it to him in the hallway. It had emitted a weird blue light, and this one glows neon green as he shines it on the front door. The lock clicks and he gently eases the door open.

"You got a new one," she whispers, gesturing at the screwdriver as they slip inside. Instead of answering, he shines the light over her face, momentarily blinding her.

"I hate you."

"No you don't." He grasps her hand. "C'mon. Basement, right?"

The boxes are heavy – she's never carried them before, it had always been her dad's job. But the Doctor is surprisingly strong, despite being so skinny, and they get all three boxes into the sitting room quickly. Being careful not to make too much noise, Amy lifts the lid of one and breathes in. The smell is still the same – how long has she gone without it? A mixture of mahogany wood and cinnamon and pine. Several strings of lights are coiled on top of each other, and she runs her fingers over a pile of silver tinsel.

"What else do you remember?"

The Doctor is opening another box next to her, an expression of pure glee spreading over his face. She wonders if he even knows what this stuff is. Do they have Christmas on his weirdo alien planet?

"I remember…" Amy stands up, clutching the string lights in her hands, and it all floods back. "I came down in the middle of the night and it was all decorated. Everything. The ornaments on the tree, the plastic candles in the windows, the lights… just everything, stuff I hadn't seen in years, and I never knew…"

She realizes she's smiling brightly, so wide her cheeks actually ache. The Doctor watches her from the floor. His expression is soft and so full of happiness it actually breaks her hard a little. She doesn't know why.

He breaks the silence with a whisper.

"We better get to work."

* * *

They leave the room glittering, sparkling, shining – exactly the way she remembers finding it when she was a little girl. The mysterious Christmas tree that decorated itself. Aunt Sharon had assumed Amy had done it herself and chastised her for not going to sleep when she was told. But Amy hadn't cared back then. Bits and pieces of her soul still clung to the idea that magic was real, that fairytales came true.

Still overcome with emotion after they duck out of the house - just before little footsteps come pitter-pattering down the staircase – she tells the Doctor to stop.

"D'you have any paper?"

They're standing by the cluster of trees again, the TARDIS tucked neatly behind. But she can't bear to go without leaving some kind of mark behind.

"Psychic," the Doctor says.

"What?"

"Psychic paper. It says whatever the reader wants to see."

She stares at him for a second before shaking her head. This is in no way the weirdest thing she's heard today. "Okay, fine. Can I borrow it?"

He looks extremely affronted. "_Borrow _it? My psychic paper? Amelia, in thirteen hundred years, how many times do you think I've let someone _borrow _a piece of psychic paper?"

"By your _attitude_, I'm guessing never."

"What do you even want it for?"

"I just…" For some reason, even though it's just a passing desire, nothing serious or meaningful, it's hard for her to say. "I wanna leave a note for someone."

"A note?"

"For… Rory." She looks down at her feet, cheeks flaming red. Thank God for the dark. "We used to climb these trees, that's all. I just…"

The words fade away into the night. He's already ripping a piece of paper out of a little black notebook.

"Take it." His voice is tense and he strides away from her, back toward the TARDIS.

"But – hang on, wait! What do I need to do? Do I have to… think of my message, or something?"

He doesn't turn to face her. "No. If he finds it, it'll say whatever he wants to hear. Whatever he needs to hear."

Amy shrugs, delicately placing the thin piece of paper on a low-hanging branch. It's a fairly still night so it shouldn't be disturbed. The Doctor's inside the TARDIS by now, the door hanging open, so she hurries after him. The last thing she hears before pulling the door shut is a chorus of singing, a faint melody that sounds like "Silent Night."

Somewhere down the street, her eight-year-old self is staring wide-eyed at a Christmas tree.


	3. part iii

_Sorry this took FOREVER, wow! I should be wrapping this up in one more chapter, and I'll probably write it fairly soon. (I should probably also mention that I wrote part of this on a plane! So like, 34,000 miles in the air or something. Pretty cool.) Thank you SO MUCH to those of you who have followed, favorited, and reviewed! It means a lot to me!_

* * *

They go to the future for their next trip, and the Doctor hasn't said so but Amy can tell it's going to be their last. He's been quiet since they left Leadworth in 1997. The silence fills every empty space of the TARDIS as he messes with buttons on the console and Amy lies flat on her back on the glass floor, staring up at a swirling ceiling.

"It's not forever, then," she says when she can't take the silence any longer.

"What?"

"When you take somebody with you. It's not forever."

"Well…" the Doctor turns around finally, giving her a strange, searching look. "No. Of course not. Who wants to do the same thing forever? Not me, that's what I always say."

"Obviously." Her eyes turn back to the ceiling.

"Amelia. What's wrong?"

"This is how it works for you, then? Just pick up a random person and take them around on trips?"

"Well, not-"

"You don't ever think about what it _does _to them, do you?" Amy sits up, angry. "You think you can just drop me off back home and I can get on with my life? How many people have you done that to, Doctor?"

He evades the question masterfully, yanking a lever on the console and then marching over to kneel down next to her.

"What do you want, Amelia?" His voice is surprisingly soothing. "Do you want to stay with me, or do you want to go home?"

"I-I want to… well, um…" The question throws her. "I want to stay. Obviously. I want to stay."

His eyes are wide, searching her face for answers, and she feels a sudden rush of sympathy. She wants him to understand.

"I want to stay, but I don't think you want me here."

"Oh Amy, Amy. I haven't been fair to you."

"…Yeah. Obviously."

"I haven't been honest, either." He reaches out to brush a strand of red hair off her forehead and she flinches, surprised. And then he sits down, cross-legged next to her. The TARDIS whirs along unconcerned.

Amy sits up, folding her legs under her. "What is it?"

"Amelia," he begins, and his voice is so heavy with sadness that she catches her breath. "In your future, I've known you for a long time."

She frowns, trying to translate that into normal human speak. "You… know a future version of me?"

He hesitates. "Yes. Very well. In the future, you're my friend. My best friend. And you trust me more than anyone. We trust each other. That's why we work, you and me. So to look at you now and not see that trust… I forget, Amy. I'm sorry. I forget that it's different for you right now."

"So wait, how long have you known me exactly?"

"I met you when you were seven."

"Yeah, duh, I remember. How old was I last time you saw me?"

Another one of those weird, loaded looks. "Thirty-two, give or take a few years."

Amy's eyes widen and she leans forward. "Thirty-two?! What do I look like?"

"Beautiful," he says instantly, with a smile that she returns. She knows he's humouring her, but her cheeks flush regardless. "In my memory, you're always beautiful."

The smile dies on her lips. "In your memory?"

"Amelia…" he says so softly he might as well not have said anything at all. "I don't know if I should…"

"Tell me."

He turns away, frowning. "I have to be so careful, Amy. None of this has happened for you yet… but you were so… you never acted like you knew… and I believed you back then…"

"Back when?"

"In your future."

Amy shakes her head rapidly, trying to clear it.

"It's been a long time," he continues, still not looking at her. "Since I've seen you last. You saw me – a much, much younger version of me – this morning. But you… Amy, I haven't seen you in over a century."

She freezes, staring at his profile, and then he gets up. His footsteps thud away and the TARDIS starts making wailing noises, sounds that are halfway familiar to her by now, but she barely processes them. Her heartbeat is thrumming frantically in her chest, mind spinning. A century. A century _alone_, with no one to drive up the wall, to yell at, to explore with. She can almost feel the ghost of her future self floating through this room like a shadow cast on the ceiling. She hopes she'll be fearless, undaunted, a comet blazing through his dark world. The perfect companion, always at the Doctor's side like two pieces of a whole.

For a little while, at least. Until she disappears.

(How will she disappear?)

"We're here!" The Doctor's voice is back to normal as he bounds around the console, smile plastered over his face. It has to be a mask, Amy realises now, it _has _to be. She gets up on shaky legs. "Alcyone, fifth planet in the Pleiades Galaxy. Twenty-nine trillion lightyears from home. Care to look around?"

"A _planet_?" Amy frowns, trying to process all the information that's been thrown at her in the past few minutes.

"A whole planet never before seen by human eyes. It's been around for years, longer than Earth, but it's constantly storming, no one ever wants to go there."

"Oh, right," she nods, rolling her eyes. "Cause if it wasn't storming, we'd be totally capable of getting to another _galaxy_."

"But! Amy, Amy," he continues, twirling down the steps. "Every hundred thousand years, there are seven days of peace. The storm stops and the clouds dissipate and the entire planet is beautiful. Cliffs of diamonds, oceans like emeralds."

"Alcyone… like halcyon?" Amy follows him hesitantly down the stairs.

"Exactly! That's where your word comes from, bleeding through species consciousness. Halcyon days. Nostalgia." He turns around, reaching for her hand to pull her toward him. "The time when everything was… perfect. Even in the middle of the storm. And if I've done my calculations correctly, _which _I'm sure I have, we should have landed right in the middle of the…"

The Doctor pulls the door open and the rest of his sentence is immediately drowned out by hurricane-like wind. All Amy can see is gray.

She frowns. "Nice one."

"What?" he yells over the gale-force winds, hair whipping across his forehead as he braces himself in the doorway.

"I said, _nice one_!" She grips the back of his coat with both hands.

"We can make it!" Still holding onto one side of the TARDIS door, he reaches one hand blindly behind him, palm face up. "We'll run through. It's okay. We can get to the eye of the storm and wait it out."

Amy stares at his hand.

"It's fine. You're fine." His voice carries back to her on the wind, already hoarse from shouting. "Come along, Pond."

It's these words that do it, hitting her like a punch in the stomach, and she slips her hand into his. _You'll have to be brave for him in the future_, she tells herself. _Better start now._

He grips her hand tightly, squeezing, and then tugs her out into swirling, howling gray of a new world.

* * *

He rewrites her life on an icy Alcyonian cliff just outside of the storm, its surface so clear and sparkling that it looks like it's made of diamonds. Away from the storm, the sky is a pale cloudless blue – different than Earth blue, more of a greenish turquoise. The winds howl in the distance, foreboding and strong, but Amy ignores them.

_I don't ever want anything other than this_, she decides as he brandishes his sonic screwdriver, cracking pieces of ice off the cliff face like stalactites and handing them to her. They don't melt in her hands.

She thinks of white Decembers in Leadworth and icicles clinging to the edges of her rooftop and throwing snowballs at Rory, and then the Doctor puts his hands on her windblown cheeks, warmth spreading through every cell of her body, and she stops thinking of things.

* * *

Alcyone has two suns and they set at different times, so it becomes night before Amy is prepared. The Doctor leads her to the valley, thousands and thousands of stars dotting the deep velvet sky and lighting their way. There's a pool at the bottom of the valley, but the water is warm so Amy takes off her shoes and wades. He sits on a smooth crystal rock and watches her.

"Can I ask a personal question?"

She can't really see his face in the dark, but she's guessing he's reluctant to answer.

"Of course," he says finally. Amy kicks her way through the teal water for a few minutes, collecting her thoughts. She turns her head back to look up at the stars. They shine like lanterns that match the colour of the pool, streaking away almost like they're forming a path out of the darkness.

She can't look at him when she says it, so she keeps staring at the stars.

"If I… if I love you in the future. Is that okay?"

His silence is so electric that she can feel it in her bones, buzzing in her head. Maybe he won't even answer. But then:

"Amelia."

It's a soft voice, but not chastising like she'd expected. Just quiet. Just tired.

"Yeah?" She turns to look at him. He's resting his chin on his hands, staring down at the water as it ripples and reflects light across his face.

"I fell in love with you a hundred times," he says finally, like he's resigned to the fact, and looks up. His eyes are huge in the darkness and Amy shivers. "In a cabinet war room in 1940. In a secret passageway below Stonehenge in 102 AD. On a Dalek prison ship floating somewhere in space."

They stare at each other for so long that Amy thinks he'll never speak again, but then he continues hoarsely, "I think I lost count."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"I couldn't."

"Wh-?"

"You love Rory. In the future, Amy. You want him."

She listens to the lapping of water against shining rocks for what feels like centuries. The air is still cold and it ruffles her hair, chilling her skin. This feeling has a name, but she doesn't think of it til later, after he's helped her climb out of the pool and led her through a hole in the cliff to a grassy stretch of land beyond. He takes off his coat and wraps her in it, and as the warmth engulfs her and she drifts off to sleep, it occurs to her.

Disappointed. She's so disappointed.

* * *

"But didn't you fight for me?"

It takes hours and hours for the sun to rise again, so when Amy wakes up, it's still dark. Because it feels like no time has passed, their earlier conversation is still burning in her mind. It hurts, stings for reasons she can't quite explain.

The Doctor is next to her, knees pulled up to his chest, looking down at her where she lies on her side. His lips quirk into a smile.

"Who could fight against Rory Pond?"

"Williams," she corrects, frowning. "And also, you've gotta be kidding me."

"Nah. I kid about a lot of things, Amelia, but your husband will never be one of them."

Wait.

Amy sits bolt upright, all the blood rushing to her head. "My _what_?"

Panic flashes across the Doctor's face. "N-nothing-"

"No, no, you said it! You said husband. My _husband_." She digs her hands into the grass just to have something to hold onto, and notes in some distant part of her brain that it feels remarkably similar to Earth grass. "In the future… I'm gonna marry Rory?"

He runs a hand over his face. "I 'spose there's no chance of you forgetting that, is there?"

"Uh, _no_." She leans forward, torn between fascination and horror. "So I'm really… _married_? We had like, a wedding and everything?"

"Amelia…" Okay, _that's _definitely chastising. "I'm not going to tell you anything about your own future. That's not allowed. Never. Allowed. D'you understand me?"

"Fine," she grumbles. They're quiet for a few moments. "But, just… Rory? Really?"

"If it's any consolation…" He pauses, considering, and then barges ahead. "You did run away with me the night before your wedding."

"I _did_?"

"You did." He taps her on the nose. "But that's all I'm ever going to tell you. Don't push your luck, Pond."

"Fine."

She shivers, crossing her arms across her chest. The air is getting slightly colder, but the howling winds in the distance are fading away. The halcyon days are coming.

"So I guess you'd never marry me, then."

He sighs heavily, but she can tell he's not really that annoyed. "Mad, insatiable Amy Pond. I did miss you."

"Missed you too," she mumbles, because even though she knows he's missed her longer, she's missed him more.

"In the future, I'll act like I don't want it. But Amy, Amy… please know that I do. I always do."

"But not…" her voice breaks, throat dry. "Not forever."

He chuckles darkly, scooting closer to drape an arm around her shoulders. "No, Amelia. Forever with you would never work." She must look a bit put out, because he quickly elaborates. "That's not who you are. You're not meant to be someone's girlfriend, someone's wife, someone's… _companion_… forever. _You _are Amelia Pond. And that's something to be proud of."

There's a shift in the air, some kind of spark kindling the already slow-burning fire in her heart, and Amy raises her head slowly to look at him. _Don't think. Don't say anything else. Rewrite the future_.

She leans in slowly, so close now that his breath ghosts across her cheek. Her world is crashing all around her, every plan and hope and dream going up in flames. But she doesn't care. Her eyes flicker shut and the only thing she can think is _this is happening, this is it._

But it's not. The Doctor smoothes a finger across her lips, red and chapped from licking them in the bitter cold wind. Her eyes pop open.

"Not yet, for you," he whispers.

And then he gets to his feet, long coat billowing behind him, and strides away. The words hang in the air as she watches him go, her shaking hands clenched into fists at her sides.

_Not yet. For you._


	4. part iv

_Here's the final part! Thank you so so much for reading, reviewing, favoriting, everything. I had so much fun with this story and I hope you enjoyed reading it :D_

* * *

Where does he actually go when he leaves her?

She's wondered this almost continuously since she was seven years old, since he promised five minutes which turned into twelve years. She thought about it when she was eating dinner, when she was sitting at her desk at school, when she was with Rory. If he had really existed – and despite her valiant efforts to convince herself that she'd had an overactive imagination as a child, she'd _always _known he was real – where did he go?

She has a pretty good idea now.

It's a nice life, probably. Hopping from planet to planet, skipping through time. Picking people up at random and dropping them off seconds or centuries later, completely changed and reeling in the aftermath. He gets to coast on alone, forgetting.

(But did he forget her, though?

A _century_ went by and he couldn't let her go.)

Amy shakes her head in frustration, getting to her feet. One of Alcyone's twin suns is just beginning to crest the horizon, glittering gold chasing away the black. She wonders if maybe he's left her here permanently.

After a few minutes of walking through the field, another icy cliff rises out of the ground and catches her eye. It looks similar to the one where they'd left the TARDIS, although it's hard to tell – she racks her brain, remembering their mad dash out of the blue box through the roaring, hurricane-force winds. All of that is gone now. The sun has risen higher now, painting everything in shades of red and orange. Its warmth washes through her and urges her on.

The Doctor had told her that as soon as the storms ended there would be seven perfect days of peace, no storms or even rain, but as she steps closer to the cliff, Amy sees what looks like a sheet of water falling to the ground. It's clear, almost like liquid crystal. She frowns, hurrying forward. It makes no sound as it falls to the ground, silently pouring from the top of the cliff down to the planet's surface. The grass beneath it doesn't even seem wet.

Amy reaches one hand out to touch it, wondering if it's really water, but before she can make contact, it ripples in front of her and there's her reflection staring out at her. She yelps and draws her hand back.

Her reflection doesn't move.

"What the…"

"Hi," her reflection says.

Amy's mouth falls open. The water is still flowing like it's being poured from a never-ending supply up above, but the surface is crystalline like a mirror. She can see the glowing gold sky and the soft grass ruffled gently by the wind. And her face. Her _own _face.

"You're… me, right?" It seems like a stupid question, but clearly when it comes to this travelling stuff, she's way out of her element.

Her reflection laughs, and now that Amy's looking a bit closer, she realises that other-Amy's hair is a bit longer and wavier, her face a bit thinner.

"I'm you, yeah. Look, I don't have much time."

Amy shuts her eyes firmly, taking deep breaths. "I'm hallucinating. That's what's happening, I'm totally… hallucinating."

A sigh of exasperation. "No, you're not. You're nineteen and the Doctor brought you here. He was never supposed to do that."

"What?"

"Well, I've been working really hard trying to figure it all out. I can't _ask _him, of course, because it hasn't happened for him yet, so I've been sneaking into the TARDIS library in the middle of the night and reading as much as I can. It doesn't help, really. He's got every Harry Potter book and about nine thousand volumes of e.e. cummings poetry in every language – and some alien languages too, I think, but who really knows…"

"Wait, wait." Amy feels like she's starting to get a headache. "You're me from the future."

"_Yes_. Wow, Rory was right, I really was an idiot when I was younger."

"Hey!"

"Sorry." Future Amy doesn't look very apologetic, but right-now Amy decides to let that slide. "Listen, I can't get too close to you. The timelines are really scrambled at this point."

"That's why you're standing behind the water?"

"It's not water, but yeah." She pauses, biting her lip. "Okay. Alright, I don't know how to say this. I don't know what happens to me in the future-"

"You _are _me in the future!"

"No, no, _my _future. Even further. I'm only two years older than you. I don't know what happens to me in the end, but I know… I know it must be something. Because he's alone, the Doctor, yeah? It's been a long time since I left him?"

"Yeah. A century."

She shuts her eyes, almost like the idea is beyond unbearable. Amy watches, speechless. It's surreal to see how much she's going to love the Doctor in her future.

(More than Rory?

Honestly, she doesn't know how it could be possible to love Rory enough to marry him.

She wants to ask herself this, but she guesses now's not the time.)

"Okay, I don't think he wasn't supposed to ever see me again. He was supposed to let me go. But there was this one gap of time that was unaccounted for, and he just saw that opportunity and took it. But he shouldn't have."

"He came back for me."

"Hey, there's one thing you always, always have to understand, okay?" Amy nods, leaning closer. "He will _always _come back for you."

"Yeah?"

"You just wait and see." Future Amy glances over her shoulder, and when she turns back, her eyes are wide and sad. "I really don't have a lot of time. I'm here with him. He brought me here because he got some message on psychic paper, but he thinks it's my first time. I had to sneak away to tell you…"

"What? What's wrong?"

"You have to forget this."

Amy doesn't understand but she's already shaking her head.

"Listen to me. _You have to. _Bringing you here… it was stupid. It was selfish. He just wanted to see you again. I don't know why he picked here, this planet, but that doesn't matter. This wasn't supposed to happen."

She's furious now, indignant. "Why not? Why does it matter?"

"There's a crack in time. In the fabric of the universe. Look." Future Amy points above their heads and there it is, a jagged line like a mouth splitting the ice of the cliff. It's visible even through the water, which seems to be pouring out from it. "I'm with the Doctor now and he's trying to figure out where it came from, but I know now. It came from this. Because he brought you here."

Breathless, Amy stares at her future self through the sheet of water. "The crack in my bedroom wall."

"Because of this. Yeah. Two parts of space and time…"

"…that never should've touched," Amy finishes. "Pressed together."

"Exactly."

"So how am I supposed to fix it?" She bites her lip, helpless. "I can't _do _anything about it. It's already done."

"I told you. You have to forget, okay? You have to forget that he ever picked you up. You'll remember him leaving you when you were nineteen, standing in the garden with Rory… and then…" she trails off, not wanting to say too much. "He'll come back for you later. But _not when you're nineteen_, do you understand? It's too soon."

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" Amy is so frustrated she thinks she might actually cry. "I can't just force myself to forget something."

"Yes you can. And I don't know if this is actually going to fix the crack in the universe, but it can't hurt. It'll rewrite your – our – timeline, at least a little bit. This water… he told me about it, the Doctor explained it to me when we got here. It looks like water, but it's not. It's leftover residue from the storms… really dangerous for humans. When it touches your skin, you'll start losing your short-term memory."

Amy stares at the water – or whatever it is – and inches backward slowly. "That's… crazy."

"Trust me, there are crazier things."

"So if I have to forget all of this and you're me in the future, how did you even know to come here?"

"I didn't," Future Amy says honestly, wide-eyed and shaking her head. "Not until we got here and it all rushed back. So I can tell you… it'll really be gone. Until you're my age. You won't remember until you're back on this planet."

"So I have to… what? Stand under the water?"

"I'm… I'm really, really sorry…"

"I don't want to," Amy says, voice shaking, and she hates herself for it, wishes she was braver and smarter and stronger. It hurts to see that feeling echoed in her future self's eyes, wide and teary, long lashes fluttering.

"I'm so sorry," she hears herself say again.

She has two seconds to ruminate on how utterly strange it is to be standing here on the surface of some distant planet, talking with herself, before future Amy thrusts out an arm and grabs her shirt, pulling her under the torrential sheet of water.

* * *

_On the cliff high above their heads, the Doctor finds his past self pacing back and forth exactly where he knew he'd be. He's staring at a piece of psychic paper in gleeful bewilderment, tweed jacket billowing in the light breeze._

_ The Doctor already knows what he's supposed to say._

_ "Right here." His voice is loud and hoarse, exactly the way he remembers it. His past self whips around, flyaway brown hair ruffling across his forehead, and he raises one hand in greeting, smiling broadly. Striding forward. All confidence, completely assured. _

_ "Got your message!" Seeing himself like this is like watching a ghost. His face looked young then, eyes greener and wider. "Something about Amy? Is she okay, then, in your time?"_

_ The words fall out of his mouth automatically. "She's fine. She's fine. I just called you here because…"_

_ And he remembers this silence, too, the way it stretched on and on until his ears were ringing, the air heavy with things unsaid. He remembers that feeling of general uneasiness settling over him, that ever-persistent fear that something is coming, something is wrong. And Amy, Amelia, always Amelia._

_ "It's not just about love, with her," he says finally._

_ "I know." His younger self frowns._

_ "It's more than love. You're all she has." He pauses, turning around to face into the wind. It stings his face and sparks tears in his eyes. "Remember that."_

_ He's climbed halfway down the cliff when he hears her scream._

* * *

Amy sees everything as it happens, but instead of cementing in her memory, sights and sounds slip away like water through her fingers. She hears herself scream, and then it's forgotten. The grip on her shirt loosens and then disappears, but she forgets who was even holding her in the first place. A voice calls her name and she screams back, _screams_, tearing her throat, a sob ripping out of her chest because she's so relieved that it's him, it's him… it's who?

"Amy, I'm here."

His voice is so close and she's so glad – she chokes on her tears – why is she crying? Who is he, why is he here, why is he holding her?

"Amy, listen, it's going to make you forget-"

"I don't want to!" It comes out hysterical, almost a scream. She's lying in the grass now, hair soaking wet and streaming across her back, and she's shaking.

"But you're going to." The sadness in his voice is so palpable she actually aches, even in the midst of her panic.

"Doctor, please, please, don't let it take me…"

"That's why you didn't know… you didn't remember the TARDIS in your future… you won't remember, oh Amy, I'm sorry, Amelia, I'm so sorry…"

"I'm scared," she hears herself saying. The echo of the words is instantly erased, but the feeling remains. Scared. Scared. Everything she feels comes in a sharp, clear burst, then it's gone forever. His arms tight and warm around her, lifting her up… gone. Panicked double heartbeats thudding in his chest… gone.

And then he's saying it, just like she'd dreamt for years – but not like this, _not like this_.

"Amy, Amy, I love you, I'm so sorry, please Amelia, I love you, so much, oh God, oh I love you…"

_Say something!_

The words die on her lips. Over and over she tries to voice them, and over and over they evaporate. Just before she fades away into blackness, she hears three last words. Words she strains to remember, clinging to as tightly as she can, clawing wildly through the air. Words she'll half-remember in dreams for years, but never entirely.

"Goodbye, Amelia, love…"

* * *

_He lays her down on the floor of the TARDIS, and he knows she's fine, just unconscious, but the sight sends him out of his mind with blind panic. Her eyes are shut gently, lashes fanned out over pale cheeks. Shuddering, trying to catch his breath, he traces the tear stains on her face. He tugs off his wool coat and folds it under her head, a makeshift pillow, and then gets to his feet._

_ One last trip._

_ They land in her garden, and according to his calculations they've only been gone for fifteen minutes. Less than a split second for Time Lords. Nothing at all. When he carries her into the house, he remembers her at seven years old cradled in his arms. He remembers carrying her unconscious body through the smoke and ash of a Dalek prison ship, her hair streaming in waves like fire. He remembers her very first night in the TARDIS when, after running around the console in a frenzy trying to figure out what every single lever and button and switch did, she'd succumbed to exhaustion and fallen asleep sprawled out on the staircase. He'd carried her to her bedroom then, back when it was only hers and not Rory's. Even in the dark, he couldn't bring himself to leave. He'd sat at her bedside and listened to her breathing and told her everything. Every companion he'd ever had and lost. Rose's tears when he told her she could never come back from the parallel world. Martha turning to walk away from him without looking back once. Donna's face when he made her forget. The Master dying in his arms. Every species extinction he'd watched or caused. Every living thing that had slipped away from life before his eyes. He talked until he lost his voice, until tears streamed down his cheeks and soaked into her hair._

_ ("That first night… I was awake," she told him during a quiet moment four years later._

_ He'd stared at her and she'd stared back, hard, and that's when he'd known for sure that he was doomed.)_

_ "I'm not going to do this anymore," he says in a soft voice now, standing in the doorway of Amelia Pond's bedroom in Leadworth. She's fast asleep, really sleeping this time, tucked into bed. He stares at her silhouette, engraving every detail in his memory and slamming the door, locking it tight so he can't ever go there again. _

_ "You were the last one."_

* * *

Rory proposes to Amy the day before her twenty-first birthday. She can tell it's a proposal the minute he shows up at her door, but she feigns ignorance for his sake, listening as he stumbles through an obviously rehearsed speech.

"When I first met you, I knew that we were supposed to be together." _We were six, _she wants to scream at him. _How can you possibly know something like that when you're six? _But she plasters a smile on her face, leaning up against the doorframe, as he rambles on about the 'dumb games' she made him play when they were kids and the way she was always better at climbing trees.

"When I was eight, my parents told me that we were going to move to a different town, and I was just so… heartbroken that I would have to leave you, Amy, before I got a chance to tell you how much I loved you…"

"You loved me when we were eight?"

"I knew I loved you when I found your note."

"My…?"

"The note you left for me in the trees where we always played," he explains eagerly, and she nods like she's just realised what the hell he's on about. "The note where you said you liked me too. Remember, you left in on the lowest branch of your favourite tree? And you wrote my name at the top. I found it on Christmas morning. That's how I convinced my parents to stay. Because of you."

_Get to the point, Rory._ She knows it's coming. Enough with the childhood anecdotes she doesn't even remember. She feels antsy, like she needs to go run around outside. Over his shoulder she catches a glimpse of the shed and she imagines the blue box materialising in front of her eyes. If it showed up right now, what would she do? What would she choose?

It's pointless. It doesn't matter, because here's Rory, down on one knee now, a red velvet box in his outstretched hand and all the hope in the world shining in his eyes. She sees her whole life stretching out before her: being fitted for a white dress and buying a house in Upper Leadworth and making dinner while Rory's working at the hospital and chasing a little boy and girl around the garden and growing old in this town, walking the same streets and breathing the same air day after day after day.

But she also sees herself in this house forever. Sleeping in the same room, always alone. Head cocked to the side, listening for a sound she's convinced she will never hear again.

Waiting.

She doesn't know why, but the urgency grips her, tightening around her heart like a fist of ice. It's imperative that she accept. And fast.

"Yes," she blurts out.

Rory's trying not to cry. Amy actually does cry, but it's not because she's happy. The tears are hot on her face.

"Let's do it soon," she says as soon as Rory slips the ring onto her finger. He looks up, startled.

"Soon? How soon?"

"A month?"

She laughs shakily at the expression on his face. But he wraps his arms around her and pulls her in for a kiss, and she knows she's won. They set the date. June 26, 2010.

The ring is still in its little velvet box next to her bed a month later. She slips it on during the day, especially when she knows she's going to see Rory, but she can't bring herself to wear it around town. The night before the wedding, she falls asleep staring at the box on her nightstand. The rest of her life, chained to someone else by a little diamond ring.

That night, she dreams of pale sunshine and chilly morning air spreading across the garden. A pair of deep green eyes staring into hers. A face, older and wiser yet childlike and sad, and a smile that's contagious. It's a dream, but it's also a memory, and she wakes up with a jolt.

The TARDIS engines whir outside her window.

She jumps out of bed, runs across the room, and pulls the curtains aside. Stares down into the garden at the blue box perched neatly in the grass.

She runs downstairs. She runs away.

And it's the beginning of the end.


End file.
